


The Dread Pirate Brooks

by sadlikeknives



Category: Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pirates, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21749269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives
Summary: "First night at Pirate Night, you have to pirate," Luke said.  "Those are the rules.  That I just made up.""This is like my fifth time at Pirate Night," Kyle pointed out.  "Because Pirate Night is also Mercy's Brownies Night.""Fine, fifth time at Pirate Night, you have to pirate."
Relationships: Kyle Brooks/Warren Smith
Comments: 16
Kudos: 142
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Dread Pirate Brooks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [estelraca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelraca/gifts).



Mercy had been killed off first, as usual, but Warren's pirate avatar had died before the brownies were done and Kyle had tagged along expressly in hope of brownies, so he was hanging out in the living room with his mate and his current book when Auriele asked, flummoxed, "What are you reading?" She must have just gotten killed in Pirate's Booty, although usually, on the rare occasions that happened, she just logged right back in and started over, and ended up winning anyway. She must have really wanted a brownie.

Warren tilted the book enough to look at the cover. Yep. Still just as ridiculous as it had been this morning. Kyle kept trying to get him to switch to ebooks, which could be contained in his phone and which, Kyle argued, could hide his shame from the world, but he was old. He didn't really care if people knew he read ridiculous books, and he liked paper. All of Kyle's friends thought he was a hipster, which was fair. Kyle had thought he was a hipster at first, too.

"Gay cowboy romance novel of the week," Kyle told her without looking up from his phone. "He's working his way through the entire subgenre, because...well, for obvious reasons."

"And I am _living_ ," Warren agreed.

"That's a thing?" Auriele asked.

"That's a thing," Warren confirmed, and turned the page. He had never really thought to live to see the day when it was a thing, and yet here he was. _Oh brave new world,_ and all that.

"I mean, they're trash," Kyle said.

"Oh, they're pure trash. But I deserve this. I deserve this trash."

"You do, baby," Kyle agreed, reaching over with his free hand to pat him on the arm. "You deserve all the trash you want."

"Okay, that's weirdly romantic. They're not," Auriele said, and she sounded hesitant enough that Warren glanced up at her again. "It's not one of those 'wolf shifter' romance novels, is it?" She did the air quotes and everything.

From the other side of the room, Luke asked without looking away from the TV, "They can't just say werewolf?"

"They're probably afraid you're going to sue them," Kyle suggested.

"Yeah, no," Warren said. "I don't need to read people getting everything wrong for three hundred pages."

"And yet," Kyle teased, "you read the cowboy books."

"Those are archetypes," Warren said with as much dignity as he could muster with a smile curling at the corner of his mouth. "That's different."

"I read one of those once," Auriele blurted out, and they both stared at her. "I confiscated it from a student," she said defensively. "It wasn't on purpose."

"Kyle read one on purpose," Warren told her.

"I thought we weren't ever going to tell anyone about that," Kyle mumbled, and jabbed at his phone several times in quick succession. "That was...something."

"That was an experience," Warren agreed. He had been in the shower one evening when Kyle suddenly burst into the room and asked if it was possible for Warren to knock him up. Warren had wiped the shampoo out of his eyes and demanded to know what in the actual name of Jesus Fox News was on about now, but no, it turned out fiction was still stranger than even that warped brand of reality. Kyle had then insisted on finishing the book, because his horrible parents "didn't raise a quitter, Warren," and had also insisted on reading key parts aloud so that Warren could 'appreciate' it with him. Warren had threatened to take away his library card and have Ben lock him out of his Amazon account, but it hadn't stopped him, because nothing stopped Kyle once he was set on his course. He was really lucky Warren loved him.

Of course, if Warren found a romance novel about a gay cowboy who was also a werewolf, he would probably read it regardless of what claims it made regarding werewolves' bits--to find out if he needed to sue someone for stealing his likeness, if nothing else.

Auriele was protesting, "It can't be worse than what I read. It had...how can I put this. Creative ideas. About our parts."

"Do you know what 'mpreg' is?" Kyle asked, looking over his phone at her, and at her confused expression, told her to, "Keep it that way."

Luke, who was also a dead pirate and also, presumably, waiting around for brownies, said without looking away from the baseball game occupying his attention, "You know, George went on a date--I guess if that's the right word for what George does--one time with a woman who had been reading those books and had gotten some...creative ideas about us. And our parts."

"Oh, God," Auriele said colorlessly.

"I mean, she didn't actually know he was a werewolf. He wasn't out yet. She just wanted to, uh...you know. Roleplay."

"Oh, God," Kyle said in the exact same tone Auriele had used.

"Yeah, so, I guess they got their wires crossed and he didn't understand she meant it fictionally at first, and he ended up outing himself trying to explain that his dick doesn't do that."

Kyle's shoulders started shaking silently, and then all at once he gave in and was laughing hysterically, close to crying with it.

"It's not _that_ funny," Warren told him.

"I know," Kyle said, waving the hand holding his phone vaguely. "I know. It's just--" He dissolved back into the giggles without being able to explain what it was 'just.'

Warren looked at him in fond amusement for a moment. "Well, all right, then."

"I mean," Auriele allowed, "it's pretty funny." It was pretty funny; Warren just didn't think it merited Kyle's reaction. Then again, Kyle had had a long day. Maybe he needed this.

Mercy came in from the kitchen then, drying her hands on a towel, and asked, "Did you guys break Kyle?"

"Little bit," Warren said, and turned the page of his book.

"What were you guys talking about that you broke Kyle?"

Warren, Auriele, and Luke shared a horrified look as Kyle, who had been getting it together, popped the seams again at their predicament. Sometimes, not being able to outright lie to people was a real problem.

"Romance novels," Auriele finally said.

"Romance novels?" Mercy echoed, clearly dubious, probably because Auriele had, while obviously telling the truth, also sounded guilty as hell.

"Warren likes ones with cowboys. Gay cowboys. Which I didn't know existed, but I guess it makes sense."

Warren was unable to resist teasing her, "You've known me for almost ten years and you didn't know I existed?"

"I meant the _books_." Before Mercy could ask anything else about the romance novels and take the conversation back into truly dangerous territory, Auriele quickly asked, "Are the brownies ready?"

"Not quite, but someone can lick a beater," Mercy said, and nearly got knocked over by Auriele and Luke racing each other to the kitchen. Kyle was making a little wheezing noise now. Mercy asked Warren, "Is he okay?"

"He's fine," Warren assured her, and patted Kyle on the shoulder. "Just give him a minute."

There was a commotion downstairs as someone died in the game, and then of all people George came up from the basement and asked, "Are the brownies ready yet? And did you guys break Brooks?"

"He's laughing at you," Auriele called from the kitchen, and George blinked in confusion.

"He is laughing at you," Warren told him, which just seemed to deepen his confusion. "The brownies are almost ready. Luke was telling us about a date you went on one time. She might have been a furry?" Kyle cracked up harder. The poor guy was going to have sore ribs at this rate. George dragged one hand over his face, and Warren said, "Hey, it sounded like you handled it well."

"She wasn't a furry. For the record. Not that it matters."

"What's a furry?" Mercy asked. Warren had thought most of her age cohort already knew that sort of thing--Kyle obviously did--but Mercy hadn't grown up with the internet like a lot of them had, and sometimes the backwoods Montana girl still showed through.

Warren told her, "You don't really want to know." She still looked curious, but after considering both him and George for a moment, she accepted it with a nod. She was smart that way, was Mercy. Sometimes. Sometimes she just flung herself headlong into trouble, but usually not by googling it, so maybe they were in the clear.

George turned to Kyle, who had recovered enough to wipe at his eyes and mostly stifle the giggles. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Is it going to involve--"

"I would prefer it if we could all go back to pretending that never happened, actually," George said hastily, cutting his eyes toward Mercy, who still looked completely lost. That was good. They should keep it that way.

"You told Luke," Warren pointed out. "That was your first mistake."

George looked deeply pained. "I didn't tell Luke, I told Nat, because he was going to start using dating apps and he needed to know. It's a whole new world out there."

"Nat tells Luke everything."

"I _know_."

Kyle had fully composed himself now, and he straightened up and said, "Yeah, okay, ask your question."

"Why are you at Pirate Night if you're not here to pirate, you're just going to sit around upstairs and di--" His eyes cut to Mercy again. "--mess around on your phone?" Warren internally rolled his eyes. He loved Adam like a brother, and the man was a good Alpha, maybe even a great one, but his whole hangup about profanity in front of women was a bit precious--Warren had known women who swore like Ben--and pointless when Ben still walked among them anyway.

Kyle shrugged. "I wanted brownies. Sure, I could have stayed home and made my own brownies, but why would I do that, when I knew Mercy would end up making brownies and hers are better than mine?"

George nodded, clearly considering this answer acceptable, and Mercy said, "Oh, I see how it is. You only love me for my chocolate."

"I love anyone who gives me chocolate," Kyle told her. "You're not special."

"Gee, thanks. See if I give you a brownie now."

"But I love you for other reasons, too," Kyle protested. "Many of them not even related to chocolate."

"I will allow it. But what if I'd made chocolate chip cookies instead of brownies?"

"No, see, that was why I was in the kitchen helping you, so I could steer you toward brownies. I had a _plan_." Then he shrugged and admitted, "But honestly it didn't matter, as long as it contains chocolate I'm easy."

"But it's _Pirate_ Night," Luke said as he came back into the living room, obviously having lost the battle for the lickable beater, as evidenced by his already fading black eye. He should have known better than to go up against Auriele--well, ever, but especially when chocolate was on the line. Auriele was one of the most aggressively competitive members of the pack, moreso even than her husband. It was why she was frequently the ultimate champion of Pirate Night. "You can't come to Pirate Night and not be a pirate."

"Yeah, it's like Fight Club," George said.

"The first rule of Fight Club is we do not talk about Fight Club, George," Luke protested.

Kyle rolled his eyes and said, "I don't play video games."

"You have Angry Birds open _right now_ ," Mercy pointed out. "I can see it from here."

"That doesn't count," Kyle protested.

"Why not?" Kyle just shrugged. Warren understood Kyle enough that he thought he knew what he meant, but he also understood Kyle enough that he thought that Kyle was toying with them now, and he let him do it.

"You have that sweet system in the game room at your house," Luke put in. "What's that for if you don't play video games?"

"That's mostly for the kids who stay there sometimes. And apparently for all of the werewolves who keep hanging around my house these days." That number did seem to be increasing. Warren suspected it had something to do with the pack at large discovering the game room during last Thanksgiving's disaster. A lot of them had been to the house for movie night before then, but not, he guessed, to the basement. "And anyway, I'm not a member of the pack."

"That doesn't matter," Luke argued. "Jesse's not a member of the pack either, but that didn't stop her from shanking me half an hour ago."

"Are you bad at video games?" Mercy asked, somehow still unaware, after years of friendship with Kyle, that those were fighting words. Then again, Warren didn't think she'd ever played a video game in her life until Pirate Night started up, so maybe she genuinely didn't know. "Is that it? Because I'm terrible, and they all try to kill me first anyway, and it's still fun."

Warren watched the fire come on in Kyle's eyes for a moment before he consciously shut his expression down, and thought, _Here we go_. George saw and recognized it, too, and tipped an inquisitive look toward Warren, who nodded once, shallow. George's expression turned thoughtful, probably debating whether or not he wanted to log back into Pirate's Booty tonight.

Werewolves were notoriously competitive. In a badly run pack, something like a game night could have ended with actual blood on the floor, and some of Adam's pack did get a little too into it sometimes (see also: Auriele). Warren was an outlier among dominant werewolves in that he wasn't really competitive at all, mostly for two reasons. The first was that he had been a lone wolf for so long that his first instinct was to never to show off, to keep things close to the vest, not let anyone know what he was capable of, even in friendly competition, so that when he needed to use it to survive it came as a total surprise.

The second reason maybe came, too, from having been alone for so long, or maybe it came from being in that rarefied upper tier of dominance Warren hadn't fully understood he inhabited until he'd finally been able to spend extended amounts of time around other werewolves without someone trying to kill him. In a different world, as a different kind of man, Warren could have been an Alpha for a hundred years by now--not on Adam's level, sure, but practically no one was on Adam's level--but he wasn't that man and he didn't live in that world. He lived in a world where he'd been faking it for years, because for a long time the only pack that had ever been willing to tolerate him had barely taken him as third and sure as hell wouldn't have had him as second, so he tried not to think about it that much. He didn't really want to be an Alpha anyway. What it came down to either way was: he knew himself, down to the bone, and he was comfortable with himself. So he wasn't great at video games. So what? He knew who he was and what he _was_ good at. He didn't need to win anything to prove it. He came to Pirate Night sometimes, even though it wasn't really his thing, because it was good to be with the pack when they were having fun, and he lost good-naturedly, and he ate whatever chocolate-laden confection Mercy ended up making that week. It was all good.

Kyle was a different kind of person. Warren was pretty sure it was the difference between 'fuck it' and 'fuck _you_.'

Kyle was a very dominant personality. It was hard to say exactly how dominant because among the pack he was intrinsically tied to Warren, and because he was human, with human body language and reactions, but he was definitely pretty far up there. But he was, unlike Warren, _deeply_ competitive. It was part of what made him so damned good at his job. He had a real fire to win, and he had a chip on his shoulder from spending his whole life trying to prove himself, fighting to be who he was in a family that had ended up casting him out for it, in a world that still wasn't entirely comfortable with people like them.

Kyle was also a millennial who had spent a lot of his youth trying to avoid outdoorsy activities meant to turn him into a "real man," with the result in his case being that he had spent a _lot_ of time playing video games. He had taken out a lot of frustrations on a gaming console or a laptop, once upon a time. It wasn't something he did often any more, not a preferred way to spend his free time like it was for some guys--which was why he hadn't participated in Pirate Night thus far--but it was, from what Warren had seen, not a skill that had gone rusty, either. He could turn that drive off--Warren had seen him do so for some of the kids who'd stayed at their house, who needed a buddy for a game, not someone to absolutely demolish them--but that was for kids.

"First night at Pirate Night, you have to pirate," Luke said. "Those are the rules. That I just made up."

"This is like my fifth time at Pirate Night," Kyle pointed out. "Because Pirate Night is also Mercy's Brownies Night."

"Fine, fifth time at Pirate Night, you have to pirate."

"You can use my account," Warren offered. It would be nice to have it win for once. "Also, the pirates can be gay. It's historically accurate like that."

"Wait, what?" Luke asked. They all ignored him. "Pirates were gay, what?"

"Yeah," Kyle said, and put his phone in his pocket. "Okay. But I've never played--what is it? CAG--

"That's completely wrong," Mercy told him. "Well, no, it's not completely wrong. That's the old game. It's ISTDPB4 now."

"I've never played whatever your ridiculous acronym is before," he hedged, like the little card sharp he was. George rolled his eyes, but Luke and Mercy still hadn't caught on and seemed to earnestly want to help. Mercy was too nice for her own good sometimes, especially when it came to her own people. He had no idea what Luke's excuse was. Luke was pretty hidebound; Warren hadn't thought he even liked Kyle.

"Just call it Pirate's Booty," Luke suggested. Kyle opened his mouth, an evil gleam in his eye, and then closed it, clearly saving whatever dirty joke he'd just thought up for later.

"You have to talk like a pirate," Mercy told Kyle. "Can you talk like a pirate?"

Kyle gave her a look that was almost withering. "Mercy, do you have _any_ idea how many times I've watched _Pirates of the Caribbean_? The early ones, before Johnny Depp got gross."

"Kind of, considering I was present for some of them."

"It doesn't have to be very like a pirate," Luke told him, trying to be reassuring, unaware that whether or not Kyle sounded at all like a pirate was not about to be anyone's biggest problem. "Ben mostly talks like he usually does but with more obscure profanity."

"Hey, guys," Mercy called, "Kyle's gonna play, okay?"

"Oh, no," Zack, who was a submissive wolf and therefore not in the general run of things that competitive, but who lived in their house and thus knew exactly what was coming, exclaimed. "Hell, no!" Ben, the only other person in the pack who had gamed with Kyle before and had some notion of what was about to happen, let out a stream of invective so creative Warren felt like he should take notes. "Adam!" Zack protested, turning to the only higher power that might save them now.

Adam's confusion came through clear in his voice as he said, "If Kyle wants to play, he can play."

The timer went off in the kitchen, and Mercy hurried off to deal with the brownies. Warren marked his place in his book and stood up. "Are we doing this?" he asked Kyle, and then amended that to, "Are you doing this?"

Kyle looked up at him with that butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth poker face that served him so well in his profession and said, "I guess so. Could be fun."

"Come on. I'll get you logged in." He got Kyle set up on his laptop, next to Honey on the sofa in the basement, and gave him a quick briefing on the basic mechanics of the game, then dropped a kiss on his cheek and told him to, "Have fun."

"No one else is going to have fun," Ben muttered darkly. Everyone else apparently missed it, except Zack, who just grunted in agreement. He said it in his normal accent, which was nothing like his Sodding Bart accent. Warren had no idea what Luke was hearing there.

"So the objective isn't just to murder everyone, right?"

"Only if you're Sodding Bart," Jesse said. "Otherwise the objective is to get as much treasure as you can, _and_ to murder everybody."

"Got it." As he headed upstairs to get a brownie, Warren heard Kyle saying brightly, "So you'll have to go easy on me at first, until I get the hang of this."

God help them all. Had anyone ever said that when they weren't about to fleece the house?

Upstairs, Auriele, George, and Mercy were getting a head start on devouring the brownies before the rest of the horde could get to them. Mercy cut a giant square and set it on a napkin, pushed it across the kitchen island to Warren, and asked, "He's going to destroy them, isn't he?"

So she'd caught on after all. Warren just nodded around a mouthful of chocolate, and Auriele pushed away from where she'd been leaning against the cabinets and declared, "I have to defend my honor."

Warren swallowed and told her, "Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valor. Maybe just eat more brownies tonight. Maybe that."

A howl of betrayal drifted up from the basement. Warren couldn't identify the source at first because he had never heard Adam make anything like that sound before, but then Zack cried, "I tried to tell you!"

"'I never thought the leopard would eat _my_ face,' says the guy who said, 'If the leopard wants to eat our faces he can,'" Ben said, positively dripping sarcasm. Well, that wasn't exactly what he said, but they'd all installed mental filters by now.

Mercy cut another brownie and wrapped it in a napkin. "Give this to your leopard," she told Warren. "Maybe it'll sweeten his disposition."

"Yeah, I'm not going back down there," Auriele decided. "It's not worth it. But Darryl's in this to the bitter end, so can I read your gay cowboy book while you watch your mate lay waste to our pack?"

"Sure. I promise it has standard parts." 

Auriele gave him a thumbs up, and Mercy asked, puzzled, "There are books with non-standard parts?"

Auriele and Warren chorused, "Keep it that way," which only confused her more. Possibly she was thinking of 'parts' in a different way than how they meant it, but again, Warren figured she was happier being confused than she would be with the answers.

Warren picked up Kyle's brownie and told them, "Gotta go," and headed back downstairs to watch the carnage unfold.


End file.
